


Of Forgotten Anomalies and Destined Oblivion

by CounterfeitBravado



Series: For All the Things My Eyes Have Seen, the Best by Far Is You [2]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, F/F, childhood AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 21:45:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12308454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CounterfeitBravado/pseuds/CounterfeitBravado
Summary: She’d spent the past decade trying to erase it all from her memory-- the multiverse, the time traveler, the missing girl-- and here they were, unraveling in front of her eleven years too late./ /In which Alex Danvers tries to evade her past all while wanting nothing more than to run towards it.





	Of Forgotten Anomalies and Destined Oblivion

**Author's Note:**

> This work is the counterpart to another titled "Of Theoretical Time Travelers and Gravitational Pulls", which explored Maggie's perspective on the whole ordeal. I got the idea for this fic from the comment section of my last piece, so yeah-- credit where credit's due. That being said, I believe this can be read individually, there's one scene I literally copied and pasted from my last work to try and make it less confusing for anyone who wants to do that. Before we get into that though, a quick note on timelines: 
> 
> Time isn’t exactly “linear” in this fic. Not in the traditional sense of the word. Being that, based on the multiverse theory, different Earths travel at different speeds. For example, one Earth could be at 1990, full on with butterfly clips and jelly bracelets, while another could be at 2001, complete with Avril Lavigne (pre-clone, of course) and flare jeans. Let’s say a person is traveling from the first Earth, 1990, to the second, 2001-- it doesn’t mean they’ve aged eleven years, it means they were placed in a new terrain that did. 
> 
> Hope you all like it :)

 

Earth 11- 1932

 

Alex takes a second to assess the situation unraveling in front of her.

 

There’s a girl.

 

There’s a girl in a boy’s shirt.

 

There’s a girl in a boy’s shirt pushing her way into the backyard from the loose panel of the wooden fence.

 

She’s got her arms cradled around her torso and something is definitely moving around under her top. A loud group of people move past the property just outside the fence, shouting and angry and loud, the lot of them visible only through the small openings between panels. At this, the girl presses herself against a board, crouching down to curl her body over her stomach, eyes shut tight, holding her breath and only letting the tension go when the group’s shouts dwindle away.

 

Alex stares wide-eyed and confused, her hand paused on the flint wheel of a zippo, hovering over a glass jar containing rubbing alcohol. Taking a moment to collect herself, she places the lighter down slowly on her work table and clears her throat.

 

The girl’s eyes snap open and meet Alex’s and _oh_ , Alex has to consciously stop herself from attempting to physically shake away her reaction. At the sight of her, the other girl gently pulls her arms away to reveal a small, shaking border collie puppy.

 

“I um, I didn’t mean to intrude. Those boys back there, they were throwing sticks and rocks at her.” She nods towards the dog. “They started running after me when I tried to get her out. I saw the opening in your fence and just… yeah. I’m sorry.”

 

Alex is shaking her head before the girl finishes her apology, moving forward and bending down to join the two on the ground.

 

“Are you okay?” Alex inwardly awards herself for finding her voice.

 

“Oh, me? Yeah-- just… a bit scratched.” She trips over her ‘r’s slightly, words ending with a bit of a lisp. Her gaze shifts to meet Alex’s and Alex looks down to study the dog in return, the easy intensity of the look making her squirm.

 

“Well… You two can stay for a while. U-until you’re sure they’re gone.”

 

The girl flashes her a grateful smile, a deep set of dimples appearing on her cheeks. Alex racks her brain for something, _anything_ , to say to keep the conversation going.

 

“S-so um… w-what’re you gonna do with her?”

 

The girl looks down at the puppy shaking in her lap, frowning. “Not really sure. We’ve already got two at home to help around the farm. I don’t think my parents will let me keep another.”

 

Alex jumps and leaps and trips over her enthusiasm. “I can take care of her for you.”  

 

The frown dissolves from the girl’s face and her eyebrows shoot up her forehead, “Really?”

 

Alex’s mom is going to kill her.

 

She nods.

 

“You can even visit her and everything, I-I mean, like, if you wanted to. To maybe check on her-- not that I won’t take good care of her-- I will, just… yeah. If you want.”

 

A grin makes its way onto the girl’s face, her warm brown eyes shining with gratitude. “That’d be amazing! I’m Maggie, by the way.”

 

“Alex.” She replies, nodding towards Maggie’s lap. “And who’s this little buddy?”

 

Alex reaches towards the pup slowly and in return, the dog sniffs her hand in somewhat calculated manner. Alex pets the matted fur on the puppy’s back.

 

“Um… I guess that’s really up to you now.” Maggie carefully lifts the puppy off her lap and holds her out carefully towards Alex.

 

Taking the small dog from the other girl, Alex sets her down in her own lap and immediately, the pup goes to gnaw lightly on the hem of Alex’s shirt. It’s a soft action and when Alex tries to pull her away, the dog only buries her head further into the linens.

 

It doesn’t hurt, in fact, Alex imagines it’s a comforting action for the little thing, like a child clutching their stuffed animal. Nevertheless, she raises an amused eyebrow at Maggie, the question unspoken.

 

Sheepishly, the other girl shrugs. “She’ll grow out of it eventually.”

 

/ /

 

Earth 11- 1937

 

“Good day today, Alex?”

 

Alex drops her bookbag by the stack of hay at the entrance of the abandoned barn and sits herself down on a stool opposite Barry.

 

She shrugs, “Well their insults are getting better. About time, too.”

 

Barry twirls the pen in his hand and the drums his fingers. He never really does like it when she makes jokes like that.

 

“Yeah?” He humors her.

 

Alex sees his eyes catch sight of her bag in the corner, his gaze fixed on where someone had written ‘dyke’ in an angry red marker when Alex was in the restroom during class. Barry looks back at her with something that looks akin to pity, his hands shaking so fast they blur.

 

“Alex, I-”

 

She shakes her head and cuts him off, hurrying to change the topic, “How’s it coming along?”

 

With a sigh and a shake of his head, he fiddles with his soldering iron, the one they’d made the week before from two batteries, copper wire, and a whole lot of fiberglass tape. He prods at the makeshift portal in front of him-- bare metal with a forest of wires all connecting to different ports and sections.

 

“It’s… not. Not really.”

 

Alex deflates a tad bit at the news but works to hide it away when Barry looks back up at her.

 

“And here I was thinking this interdimensional-travel stuff would be easy.”

 

/ /

 

Earth 11- 1935

*Two years before Maggie E-11 left*

 

“I can’t believe I let you name her Gertrude.”

 

Maggie lays on her stomach, sprawled out on Alex’s bed, her face level with Gertrude’s, who huffs at the sound of her name.

 

“Hey, Gertrude was my grandmother’s name.”

 

“That’s exactly my point, Danvers.”

 

Alex kicks the other girl lightly with her foot in defiance.

 

Maggie turns to lay on her back, grinning. Her hair is splayed out in ringlets of dark waves under her and Alex has never seen anything quite so captivating.

 

She crawls up towards Alex, knees just outside her hips, arms extending for balance. Alex throws her book aside and loops her arms around the girl’s neck.

 

Maggie gives her a brilliant grin. It’s made of starstuff and lazy mornings.

 

“Hi.” She says softly, teasingly.

 

Alex lets out a small smile of her own. “Hi.”

 

Her eyes drop to Maggie’s lips then she’s leaning forward and kissing her-- two celestial beings colliding in an explosive reaction-- and Alex is lost in the feeling.

 

/ /

 

Earth 11- 1939

*Two years after Maggie E-11 left*

 

Alex’s fingers are covered in black grease and she’s pretty sure she’s got a good amount of it in her hair and clothes from how the stuff seems to smudge everywhere.

 

She’s holding her breath right alongside Barry as they stare at the device in front of them, willing the red light to blink blue. Alex can feel the tension in her shoulders, it’s never really left in the past years actually, and she can see Barry repeatedly clenching his fist from the corner of her eye.

 

A moment passes and Alex purses her lips together. Two moments and the device stares right back up at them, daring their hope to falter. Three-- as if relenting, the portal’s light turns a deep blue, it’s hue much more welcoming than the smug red that’d been taunting the two for years.

 

Another second of silence fills the barn before Barry is yelling, _Eureka!_ , and Alex drops her shoulders, laughing wetly.

 

Things run on autopilot from then on. They do their final tests and when the results that come back are positive, Barry speeds off into his suit.

 

“I’ll get her back, Alex.” He promises.

 

Alex’s heart aches in her chest. It’s the first time either of them have mentioned her since the day she left. Alex could feel the different systems in her body at war and she thinks of the past two years, of seeing Maggie’s face everywhere-- both haunting her in her sleep and plastered on ‘Missing’ posters all around town-- of clenching her teeth through the barbed insults of the townsfolk, of yearning, now more than ever, for escape.

 

Shoving away the insistent tone of her racing heart, she forces out a smile and shakes her head.

 

“Get yourself home first, Barry. They must be missing you.”

 

Barry parts with a hug and disappears in a flash of lightning.

 

Alex stands alone in the abandoned barn, pushing around the mess of scattered papers.

 

/ /

 

Earth 11- 1950

*Thirteen years after Maggie E-11 left*

 

Somewhere after the three-year mark of Barry’s leave and a five-year disappearance of Maggie, Alex loses hope, stops going to the abandoned barn every day after the schoolhouse lets out, stops obsessively reading and re-reading Maggie’s note as if staring at the four words would get more to appear.

 

Five years of Barry’s leave, the Sawyers move out of Blue Springs and their barn is left to rot. After her high school graduation, Alex takes Gertrude out on the fields of the old farm and the dog brings life back to the abandoned plot.

 

Alex gets out of the town like she always wanted in 1943, leaving behind photos of Maggie and Barry’s handwritten notes, ignoring the stinging in her chest. The backseat of her car is shared between Gertrude and a singular box of clothing.

 

She’s got it good in New York. Her apartment is small and the rent takes up nearly all of her weekly salary, but she’s got enough in her budget to put aside to be able to watch a Broadway show every now and then, so it’s not a bad setup.

 

She’s just coming back from the hospital after working a twelve-hour shift when a portal appears in the middle of her apartment and it’s startling enough that she drops her keys and trips through the door.

 

It’s Barry.

 

It’s Barry and he’s got a smile on his face that’s ecstatic and as soon as Alex steps inside, he’s off and, “Earth 38! There was a Maggie Sawyer who was supposed to die in 2015, shot five times during a failed op, but all of a sudden, she’s pulling through surgery and it’s like she’s a whole new person.”

 

Alex freezes, unable to move, so Barry moves towards her instead.

 

“It’s her, Alex. I found her. I swore I would and I did. You can get her back now and-”

 

Barry’s hands on her shoulders shake her out of her reverie, and Alex shuts herself off. She’d spent the past decade trying to erase it all from her memory-- the multiverse, the time traveler, and the missing girl-- and here they were, unraveling in front of her eleven years too late.

 

She cuts him off with a sharp, “Barry.”

 

Alex can see the realization flit into his eyes, how she’s grown five inches, how her eyes are tired and her posture worn, how Gertrude didn’t come up to greet him bounding like a puppy. He takes a step back, a look of something unfortunately recognizable in his eyes.

 

Alex sighs and calms and takes a significantly lighter tone. She can’t bring herself to look into his eyes. “ _It’s been eleven years._ ”

 

The hero regards her with a look of regret and Alex stops him before he starts apologizing.

 

“It’s not… _good_ for me to continue being hung over on this. I’ve spent _so long_ trying to adjust to it all.” She gulps, shaking her head to try and rid herself of resurfacing thoughts of her childhood-- of waiting for Maggie to pop up from a portal, that smile on her face and her eyes sparkling and everything going back to the way it was before. “It’s-It’s not what I want anymore.”

 

She’s lying through her teeth, both to Barry and herself.

 

Barry gives her a slight nod and shifts his weight. He drops an envelope and a spare device on her kitchen countertop-- sleeker, newer, safer than the one they’d made in the barn-- and turns once more to look back at her.

 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be fast enough.”

 

His voice is sincere, and Alex wants to assure him nothing’s his fault, but he’s speeding forward to give her a bone-crushing hug and the words are stuck in her throat.

 

He’s gone a second later.

 

/ /

 

Earth 11- 1935

*Two years before Maggie E-11 left*

 

“What’re you reading?”

 

“ _The Great Gatsby._ ”

 

“Again?”

 

“Good book, horrible thoughts on love.”

 

Maggie chuckles and moves to lay her head on Alex’s lap.

 

“Nerd.”

 

Alex threads her fingers through her soft locks of dark hair.

 

/ /

 

Earth 11- 1951

*Fourteen years after Maggie E-11 left*

 

Alex has a fickle relationship with knowledge.

 

She’ll do anything in the name of seeking it, addicted to learning, always needing _more_.

 

It’s this exact thought process that has her digging up the portal from where she’d hidden it nearly a year ago and calibrating the settings to go to Earth 38.

 

Alex has a fickle relationship with knowledge. She holds on to this, convincing herself that _knowing_ is ultimately so much better than being left to wonder, wandering helplessly in illusions of grandeur and hopeful dreams.

 

A portal opens in front of her, wobbly and pulsing blue.

 

Alex takes a deep breath and lets it out on the other side.

 

/ /

 

Earth 11- 1936

*One year before Maggie E-11 left*

 

“So. The multiverse, huh?”

 

Maggie nods, taking Alex’s hands in hers and starts to play with her fingers.

 

“Infinite worlds with infinite versions of ourselves.”

 

Her voice has a lilt of wonder to them, even more so than usual. It makes Alex shift closer to hear more of it.

 

“Do you think we know each other in other worlds?”

 

Maggie smiles at the question, dimples popping and Alex leans towards her to kiss her cheek. Maggie squirms adorably at the intimacy, before turning her head to give Alex a kiss on the lips. Alex can taste the cherries Maggie ate earlier. The other girl pulls away, looking right into Alex’s eyes when she does.

 

“I can see it now-- Maggie’s and Alex’s running around chasing bad guys and taking names, inseparable in every world.”

 

Alex lets out a small laugh. “But seriously, do you think so?”

 

“I’m not too sure, Danvers.”

 

“I’d want it to be that way,” Alex admits.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Does that scare you?”

 

Maggie grins. She shakes her head.

 

“So. Together in this universe and the next, huh?”

 

Maggie hooks her pinky through Alex’s in a silent promise.

 

“In this universe and the next.”

 

Alex lays back on the roof, arms extending beside her as she takes in the starry night sky.

 

( _The world is a dream, you say, and it’s lovely, sometimes. Sunset. Clouds. Sky._ and _No, The image is the dream. The beauty is real. Can you see the difference?_ )

 

/ /

 

Earth 11- 1940

*Three years after Maggie E-11 left*

 

Alex hates Maggie Sawyer-- jumping through universes, chasing after new adventures, running from Earths.

 

She takes another swig of whiskey. The bottle is already half empty.

 

Alex glares at the note in her hand, the final words Maggie had ever said to her. The girl looped her ‘l’s and left out the dots in her ‘i’s. It isn’t fair how she gets to go around, running away when things get too difficult in search of a world that’s perfect for her, a world she can’t possibly leave. Alex hates her for being able to leave this one.

 

Even then, she thinks back to the day in the barn with that fucking kiss and that damned device. She thinks back to how she’d give anything to go back to that day, because screw what she had thought, fuck logical thought and persuasive reasonings _._ She wants to go back, go back to that day and drop to her knees and scream, and yell, and beg, _please, please take me with you and I will find a way to make you believe I am worthwhile._

 

Alex hates Maggie Sawyer but the feeling falls short to how much she misses her.

 

( _Amazing. You were so attached to it, and still it disappeared for you.)_

 

Alex screams the plea into her pillow instead, fists pounding on the bed, aching. It is futile.

 

/ /

 

Earth 38- 2017

*Right after Earth 11- 1951*

 

It’s her. It’s her Maggie.

 

She’s leaning heavily onto her right foot from when she fractured her ankle in the fifth grade from the jungle gym, tilted slightly, noticeable to those who don’t look closely enough. She’s reading a copy of _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_. Alex remembers when their class read it in the seventh grade. Her mouth turns down slightly as she thumbs to another page, her dimples prominent, still.  

 

She’s real and she’s alive and she’s _right there_ and suddenly, Alex is ten again, stopping her science experiment to aid a girl who shoved her way through Alex’s gate and into her life.

 

Alex is thirteen, kissing her best friend in the snow, heart beating through her chest, the warmth of their bodies warding off the cold bite of winter.

 

Alex is fourteen and her girlfriend is linking their pinkies together, promising forever.

 

Alex is fifteen and there’s a time traveler that’s not technically a time traveler in her girlfriend’s old barn and his ideas are farfetched and true and then Maggie is gone, chasing after a perfect Earth and Alex wants to be okay with it, but all she feels is _pain_.

 

Now Alex is twenty-eight and she’s filled with sharp memories of kisses in the dark and feelings too large to comfortably fit in her body.

 

And Maggie is _right there_.

 

Alex wants to go to her, to take Maggie into her arms and erase all the hatred she’s ever felt for the woman, but her breath staggers and her steps falter because someone is coming up to Maggie.

 

It’s _her_ \-- the one from this Earth. She’s got hair trimmed just a tad shorter than Alex does herself and she’s approaching Maggie with a smile on her face and leaning down to give her a kiss.  

 

And how, _how_ , could she ever think that knowledge is power, knowledge is wisdom, when it’s right there punching her in the gut, laughing at her feelings.

 

( _Imagine the universe beautiful and just and perfect, Then be sure of one thing: the I’s has imagined it quite a bit better than you have._ )

 

There’s someone else approaching them now, a woman with blonde hair and glasses and she’s grimacing at their affection and groaning, but it’s not in any way close to how Alex grew up with because she’s got a smile on her face and nothing else but adoration. She’s teasing the two and Alex-- other Alex-- is nudging her and joking right back.

 

/ /

 

Earth 11- 1937

 

Alex finds a note between the pages of her copy of _The Great Gatsby_ and it’s got looped ‘l’s and missing dots above the ‘i’s, written in a haste. It’s got four words on it, the paper slightly wrinkled by the edges:

 

_I’ll find you again._

 

/ /

 

Earth 38- 2017

 

It’s her last day on this Earth after two weeks of just… watching.

 

It’s not like she’s allowed to exist in this world in the first place.

 

Alex is getting coffee, the best she’s ever tasted, for the road when she bumps into someone on her way out and _of course_.

 

“Shit, I’m sor-- oh, Alex!” It’s Maggie and their bodies are close and Alex has thrown away the idea of breathing altogether. “Kara said you were swamped at the DEO. We were going to bring you some coffee, but well.”

 

Maggie laughs and Alex can’t do anything but stare. She knows it isn’t true, not anymore, but Maggie smells faintly of clean-cut grass and Alex is picturing a girl in boots and a braid with mud on her knees from slipping in the pouring rain.

 

Her mind is swimming and she can’t think straight. She focuses on the wrong thing.

 

“We?”

 

It’s when she asks the question that she realizes Kara, the sister of Alex in this universe, is a few paces behind Maggie, and Kara watches the two of them with furrowed eyebrows and a deep frown.

 

“Yeah, Kara and I.” Maggie’s the one frowning now. She reaches out, tilts her head in the way she always did, and touches the tips of Alex’s hair with her fingers. “Your hair’s different… Are you okay? You seem a bit… off, somehow…”

 

Alex clenches her jaw and fists her hand to keep from leaning into the touch. It wouldn’t be _right_. Maggie… Maggie isn’t hers anymore.

 

Alex gives a nod in response, the stunned look never once leaving her face.

 

“Well, we’ve got to go now-- Kara’s got this crime scene she needs a quote from, you know, from a non-secret organization. I’ll see you tonight, Danvers.”

 

Maggie leans forward and kisses Alex’s cheek and it’s too much. Kara’s still giving her that look, a look that’s all too familiar to how Barry used to look at her back when she was a teenager.

 

Alex clears her throat and croaks out a farewell, one that rings out from this Earth to her own.

 

Maggie turns back when she’s at the door to give Alex a brilliant grin and a wave goodbye.

 

Her grin is made of starstuff and lazy mornings.

 

/ /

 

Earth 11- 1951

 

Gertrude welcomes her back with a whine and a thumping tail, too tired to come up and greet her owner. The black patches of her fur have grown grey over time and her eyes are droopy.

 

Alex gives her a wet smile and walks over to where the dog lays her head on the pillows on Alex’s bed.

 

“Hey, buddy.” She says, softly, scratching the collie in the spot she loves, right behind her collar. Her eyes are the same shade as Maggie’s. Alex lets out a wet laugh and starts to cry in the scruff of the dog’s fur, body shuddering, the pain of the past years catching up to her.

 

She sobs and sobs through hiccuping breaths and buries her hands in Gertrude’s fur.

 

Gertrude lets out a whine and nudges her head over to Alex’s lap, clamping her teeth on the hem of the woman’s shirt in response.

 

She never really did grow out of the habit.

 

**Author's Note:**

> There it is. I wasn't really planning on writing this piece, but the comment section and the increased elation of the new season (it's tomorrow!) got me really excited, so well, there you go. Like the other part of the series, all quotes are taken from the great and awesome Richard Bach from his novel, "Illusions"-- it's amazing, I highly suggest it. 
> 
> Thank you all for reading and I hope you guys liked the story. Have a great day!


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